The invention relates to an adaptive cruise control (ACC) for motor vehicles, having a sensor system for locating preceding vehicles and a controller which regulates the speed of the vehicle and/or the clearance from a preceding vehicle, based on specified control parameters. Specifically, the invention relates to an ACC that detects and reacts to slow traffic and controls the speed of a vehicle to account for the slow traffic.
Clearance and speed controllers for motor vehicles are designated as ACC systems. They typically have a radar sensor by which the clearances and relative speeds of preceding vehicles can be measured. In this way, it is possible to follow a directly preceding vehicle, a so-called target object, at a suitable distance or, more accurately, at a suitably selected time gap. In a clear-lane mode, when no target object is present, regulation takes place to a set point speed that is, for instance, a desired speed selected by the driver.